


Mercy

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, BOM Keith, Heavy Angst, I started writing this before season 6 came out and i’m too lazy to rewrite everything, M/M, Pre-S6 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 13:26:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15001841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Lance is faced with the most difficult descision he’s ever had to make.





	Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> hey!! so i wrote this before season 6 came out, and just finished chapter 1, and i don’t want to rewrite all of it so basically s6? who’s that bitch 
> 
> anyways, i hope you enjoy! leave kudos and comments if you enjoyed!

“So you understand the plan?”

“Yeah. Get in, get the info, get out.”

“Good. And a reminder - that information is crucial if we want to stop this war. No matter _what_ you find in that Galra base, you’re just getting the info.”

Lance scowled, rolling his eyes. He knew what Shiro meant; no looking for Keith. The red paladin had been missing for over a year now, and Voltron had just heard that he was being held captive by the Galra. 

Lance didn’t understand Shiro’s reasoning. Shiro was the one closest to Keith, even Lance, Keith’s boyfriend, came a second to the older male. But Shiro wasn’t concerned about Keith at all, and Lance was somewhat suspicious.

But no matter. Suspicions would have to wait. Lance had a mission to accomplish. Pidge had given him precise instructions on how to get the information from the base. Lance wasn’t even exactly sure what the information was, that’s how top secret it was. All they knew was that the information was crucial to defeating the Galra.

As Lance approached the Galra base in a small, cloaked ship, an uneasy stirring began in his stomach. It grew and grew, until by the time he got close enough to see the base, he felt nauseous. Something awful was going to happen.

No, Lance was just being silly. He pushed the anxiety down, focusing on the mission. And to hell with what Shiro said - he’d spare a moment to look for Keith. With the instructions Pidge had given him, it wouldn’t be too hard to also find where Keith was being held. Simple as cake. Easy peasy.

Turns out, Lance couldn’t be more wrong.

Infiltration of the base went smoothly. Lance stalled the ship’s engines and stopped it, activating the air-tight visor on his paladin helmet. He climbed out of the ship and slowly floated over to the base. 

Pushing himself with his hands and feet, Lance made it to the open door of the loading bay. He snuck inside and used his jet pack to slowly descend to the floor. There weren’t any guards in the loading bay at the moment, but there most likely would be soon. Lance had to move fast.

He planted a thermal bomb on one of the crates. He was exiting another way, and Pidge was going to remotely explode it from the castle once Lance got out.

Holding his bayard tightly, Lance made his way towards the main control room. Consulting a map of the base several times, Lance made it to the front door of the control room without many problems. As he approached the door, he could hear heavy footsteps approaching him. Adrenaline flooded his system, and his senses perked up in absolute terror. Lance spun around and pulled the trigger twice as his bayard morphed into a gun, hitting both Galra sentries directly in the chest. Heaving a silent sigh of relief, Lance turned back towards the door. 

As his heart pounded in his ears, he took out one of Pidge’s gizmos and placed it on top of the door’s numeric keypad lock, where the small device quickly cracked the code. The doors slowly slid open, and Lance quickly sniped the few Galra who were in the room. He ran in and shut the door behind him, dashing towards the control panel. 

He pulled up the necessary files, and typed in the necessary codes. Hunk had helped him memorize every step of what he needed to do, and even then Lance found himself slipping up in the heat of the moment. He shook his head and resumed his task, and after a grueling twenty minutes, he had the information he needed on a thin blue flash drive.

Casting an anxious glance at the door, the brown-haired male considered his options. He’d been here far too long already, someone would soon notice what he was doing. But on the other side of that same coin, he’d remained undisturbed for twenty minutes while he worked. The security on this base must’ve been lax.

Reaching a decision, he got to work. He’d give himself ten minutes to find where Keith was, and then he’d leave. Only ten. He’d add the ship or planet where Keith was being held to the flash drive, so Voltron could go rescue him. If it took longer than ten minutes, Lance would leave it be.

It took Lance seventeen minutes to find the files he needed on Keith.

He found them in the folder labeled with a string of numbers he couldn’t identify - but upon opening it, it could be seen that if was a file on all the prisoners the Galra held.

It didn’t take long to find Keith’s files in this folder. There was a separate section labeled with another string of numbers, but when it was open it revealed headshots of Keith and video clips from what looked like an interrogation room.

Lance scrolled down to the earliest clip, and opened the file.

The video feed was colorless and grainy, but the voices were keenly caught on the tape.

“You will tell us the location of Voltron and all its members.” The Galra soldier sitting across from Keith demanded.

“I’ll die first.” Keith spat.

“Very well then.”

The video cut off, and Lance quickly moved to another file, this one dated a couple months after the first.

“I’ll ask you again - where is Voltron and it’s paladins?”

Keith made no response. He was completely still in the video, eyes closed and chin resting against his chest. Along with the extremely poor video quality, Keith was wearing his Blade of Marmora armor, which made it almost impossible to tell if he was physically okay in the clips.

After downloading all the video clips onto the flash drive, Lance started searching through the other files. There were many of them, making it obvious how much the Galra valued having one of Voltron’s paladins prisoner. A knot of dread twisted in Lance’s stomach as he looked through the images and reports, and time flew past him.

Suddenly, there was a blaring alarm. Someone must’ve realized he was here.

He hastily downloaded everything else onto the flash drive, shoving it in his pocket. Holding his bayard in both hands as it morphed into a sniper, he headed out the door and towards the nearest exit. 

It was a close call, but he made it. Lance quickly jetpacked over to his ship, sliding into the cockpit and quickly re-enabling the cloaking mechanism. Lance took off, flying in a very roundabout way back to the castle of lions.

As soon as the ship touched ground in the loading bay in the castle, Lance was out. He pulled the flash drive out of his pocket, sprinting to the control room.

“Lance? Lance! You’re back!” Allura jumped up, smiling at him. He returned the grin, heading over to Pidge to hand her the flash drive.

“You didn’t believe in me?” He joked, acting hurt before he laughed. A more serious expression settling on his face, he turned towards Pidge. “I, uh, I know i wasn’t supposed to look for- for Keith while I was there, but, I couldn’t help it... And I found some really good intel!”

Pidge gave him a sympathetic look before returning her focus back to her computer. She slipped the flash drive into her computer, her glasses showing a reflection of the data as she viewed it. 

A grimace settled on her face. “The data was a red herring. There’s nothing in these files that can possibly help us defeat the Galra.”

Lance deflated. “So... I did that for nothing?”

Pidge looked up at him. “I didn’t say that. You got every single file on Keith that the Galra have. And he’s in worse shape than all of us predicted - it says here that they’ve been...” She swallowed thickly. “They’ve been torturing him for information on Voltron.”

Everyone in the room fell silent. Lance paled. Tortured..?

“We have to do something.” He said, feeling sick to his stomach.

“We can’t! We have to focus on fighting the Galra!” Shiro responded, his arms crossed.

“Keith’s your brother, Shiro! And you’re going to let him be _tortured_?” Lance took a step back, his eyes wide.

“Yes. Sometimes, we need to sacrifice some for the good of many.” Shiro’s voice was calm, his gaze steady and cold.

Lance looked at him in shock, turning around and running to his room. No, not his room - he changed his mind midway there and veered instead towards Keith’s abandoned room.

Lance would save Keith, if it was the last thing he ever did.


End file.
